Something was spawning

[Gunthr]

Something may have spawned, but what?

... not sure what it was, but here is what happened:

 

I did a rather large 10 gal water change in my nanoreef and added another powerhead, which, along with the other powerhead, the return flow from the enhiem cannister filter and the return flow from the 15 gal sump, made a fairly stiff current in my 29 gal tank. The tank got a little cloudy because I now had current in the stagnant areas and detritus got stirred up, and the current was keeping it in suspension. My filter feeders were opening up and enjoying this, so I added a good stiff shot of DT's live phytoplankton for the heck of it.

 

As I sat there watching, what looked like a little pink tube about an inch long popped out of a hole in some liverock and started pulsing out a milky white substance for about 3 seconds, then it pulled back in the hole. Then another one popped out in a different rock and did the same thing. While that was happening, another one popped out in a different rock and started squirting milk. This happened seven times that I could count, coming from liverocks all over my tank. The water turned even more hazy and milky for a little while.

 

The tubes were pinkish or beige with a little, thin, thread-like red stripe along them. They were about the diameter of the paper stick on a dum dum sucker. All of them came out of small holes in liverock.

 

Could these be bristle worms? Or something else? Any thoughts on what this was?

[Gunthr]

FYI ... we pretty much determined these creatures to be "peanut worms" over at reefcentral in Dr. Ron Shimek's column "Ask Dr. Ron."

 

"Sipuncula -- These animals, which are commonly called "peanut worms" because some have the general shape of shelled peanuts, are not particularly well studied. Only about 320 species have been formally described, all marine and mostly from shallow waters. While some (like the specimen of Sipunculus shown below) burrow into sand and mud, others (like this unidentified species from French Polynesia) live in crevices in rocks, or in empty shells. Still others bore into rock."